Ogallalla Fur Post

Located at the mouth of Rapid Creek, which in 1830 flowed south into the Cheyenne not far from this point; it was one of John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company satellite posts of Ft. Tecumseh and then Ft. Pierre Chouteau. Thomas L. Sarpy was factor there as early as the winter of 1829-30 and on January 30, 1832 he was killed when an assistant passing robes over a counter precipitated a candle into a 50 lb. open powder keg.

Thousands of robes annually were brought in by the ancestors of our present Pine Ridge Indians at this post and then taken down the Cheyenne in bateaus to Ft. Pierre and the trade goods reached the post via the Cheyenne and infrequently on pack animals from Ft. Pierre. The explosion killed Sarpy but did not seriously harm Parker, Pineau, the Yankton and Louison Brule, who were there and who brought in the melancholy news, as the ensuing fire destroyed the post.

This was the first commercial business in Pennington County. In 1857 Morne, guide to Lt. G.K. Warren, the noted topographer, pointed out the remains on October 6th as they passed it enroute Southeast from Bear Butte.